


Nights at the Clinic I

by playwrightfate



Series: Valia Hawke [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders has a crush, But Helpful, Everybody has a crush, F/M, Hawke being chaotic as always
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 18:15:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30025887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playwrightfate/pseuds/playwrightfate
Summary: Act 1. Anders is having a difficult day at the clinic. Hawke shows up. And strangely, everything gets better.“Anders. Something terrible just happened.”He whipped around, recognising the voice instantly.Hawke.His gaze examined her quickly, but she looked completely fine. No blood, no tears, no desperate expression on her face.She pointed her thumb back at the clinic door she had just entered through. “I walked into the milk bowl in front of your clinic. Broke it. Milk everywhere. It’s a catastrophe.” To illustrate this, she lifted her right foot towards him. There were indeed some white drops on her boot. “I’m terribly sorry. Mind if I stay here for a while? There’s no way I’m getting back out now,” she added, making a few steps forward.
Relationships: Anders/Female Hawke (Dragon Age), Anders/Hawke (Dragon Age)
Series: Valia Hawke [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189148
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Nights at the Clinic I

Administrating a clinic for refugees in Darktown and being its main and often only healer, was never easy. 

But some days were definitely more difficult than others. 

Like today. 

“Open wide,” Anders said as he tried once more to make Conor drink his anaesthetic so he could put his dislocated shoulder back in place and treat his broken arm. The injuries were apparently the result of a nasty fall which had happened in circumstances still very obscure to Anders as the eventful story had been interrupted three times already without anyone deigning to pick up exactly where it was left off and its main tellers, Conor and his eldest brother, Angus, kept disagreeing on the details. Anders was still waiting for the final word on whether Conor had slipped from _this_ height or _that height_ (which diverged from a few centimeters only) or if the neighbour’s son had been wearing a red or a green tunic. 

“Conor, open your mouth, please.”

“Nooooo.” The boy–too busy fighting with his brother Angus over a wooden figurine–shook his head vehemently, avoiding the spoon Anders had been holding in front of him for the past five minutes. 

Angus usually took his role of eldest brother seriously. With all the chaotic authority of an eleven-year-old boy, he had brought Conor and their younger brother Laurie down to the clinic an hour ago already but had since served more as a distraction and an added challenge for Anders now that he was trying to treat them than as any kind of authority figure which could have helped him manage them. 

Or more particularly manage Conor. 

The boy kept wincing as he flailed his broken arm around, but that did not seem to stop him from fidgeting constantly and trying to grab things. If not the toy figurine, then grabbing Anders’s staff or swishing around his vials. One bottle already lied broken at his feet.

“Do you want to feel better?” The boy nodded eagerly, but his eyes were fixed on the wooden toy his brother had secured for himself again. “Great, then open wide.” 

“No.” 

“Maker’s–” Anders stopped himself before saying something he would regret in front of children. He looked at the ceiling.

He knew the boys well. They were one of the poorest family in Darktown. Their father had died a few months ago, leaving their mother and eldest sister to work day and night to feed them. 

So Anders really wanted to help them. 

But Anders had also been woken up at five that morning, not even an hour after he had gone to bed, by a panicked man and his very pregnant wife about to give birth. The delivery had been difficult. And then the rest of the day had been a blur of incessant comings and goings of patients, each one sicker than the last. He had not even sat down once since he had gotten up that morning. So right now, saying he was starting to lose patience was an understatement. 

He put down the spoon and turned to Laurie, the youngest, quietly shivering on the clinic’s bed, looking all sick and ready to nod off. Only his eyes followed from time to time and with some envy the trials and tribulations of the wooden toy. His state looked worrying enough to calm Anders’ nerves a little. 

“So, what’s happening to you?” Anders asked gently, touching his burning forehead.

“It’s Tom that gave it to him, I saw–” Conor exclaimed.

“Nah, he just ate something rotten,” Angus cut in. 

“Who’s Tom? Is he ill too? And what did Laurie eat?” Anders asked, trying to listen to everybody at the same time. 

Angus shrugged. “Dunno. Something.” 

“No, it’s Tom that gave it to him! I saw him! He wiped his nose on Laurie’s shirt yesterday! I saw it!” 

“Who’s Tom?” _And could someone stop him from wiping his nose on people’s clothes_ , Anders thought distractedly. 

But the boys weren’t listening to him.

Angus shoved his brother. “Stop lying! You didn’t see shit. We did not even see Tom yesterday!”

“I’m not lying! You’re lying!” Conor said as he tried to push back and pry the wooden figuring away from his brother’s hands again. 

Taking his hundredth big breath of the day, Anders thought he might just set fire to the wooden toy and be done with it when he heard some noise outside the clinic.

If the templars entered the clinic right now to arrest him, Anders thought, he would not even be surprised. That was certainly the kind of day when those things might as well happen.

Wait, was that a _hissing_ sound? 

He grabbed his staff as he heard someone step into the clinic. 

“Anders. Something terrible just happened.”

He whipped around, recognising the voice instantly. 

_Hawke._

His gaze examined her quickly, but she looked completely fine. No blood, no tears, no desperate expression on her face.

She pointed her thumb back at the clinic door she had just entered through. “I walked into the milk bowl in front of your clinic. Broke it. Milk everywhere. It’s a catastrophe.” To illustrate this, she lifted her right foot towards him. There were indeed some white drops on her boot. “I’m terribly sorry. Mind if I stay here for a while? There’s no way I’m getting back out now,” she added, making a few steps forward. 

The boys stopped quarrelling to look at her. Anders scratched his forehead. “That’s the terrible news?”

With her curly dark brown hair tumbling down to her waist, her dark olive skin and those sparkling dark brown eyes, she truly offered a striking sight.

 _She’s pretty_ , he thought. And that wasn’t the first time this had crossed his mind. And he was getting a bit worried about it.

“Well, try to tell that to the cats outside. I just got _hissed_ on Anders and I don’t know much about cats, but that looked serious enough.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “there’s a whole gang out there, Anders.”

Anders stared at her, then shook his head, amused. “Ok, ok. I’ll put some milk back again in a minute. And I will try to plead your case if they’re willing to listen,” he added playfully. 

“Thank you.” 

Their eyes lingered on each other. 

He cleared his throat, trying to focus back on his patients and get their attentions again, but they were visibly fascinated by Hawke who winked and waved at them as she approached. 

“Hey boys.”

They waved back at her. 

“So,” she said, sitting in the chair next to where Anders was standing, himself back to facing the three boys who sat next to each other on the same bed, “come here often?” She crossed her ankles up on an empty bed and wiggled her brows at him. 

_Maker, he almost blushed now._

“Hawke, please, I need to focus.” He tried to sound stern, but the corner of his lips twitched.

She hummed and her eyes sparkled as she looked around the clinic. “Can I help? I could cut something! Skin, tendons, bones, I’m your girl,” she said with a bright smile as Anders tried to look at Connor’s arm again. 

The boy gasped at Hawke’s words and threw a pleading stare at Anders. “You’re not gonna cut my arm, right?” 

“Nobody’s going to cut anything,” Anders reassured him, “but you have to let me look at your arm now.”

“Or I’ll have to cut it,” Hawke added, not even trying to sound menacing as her smile widened. 

Connor held his arm tighter against him. 

“Hawke, no–“ Anders started but stopped as he caught her grinning at the boys. Angus giggled.

_Maker, he really was tired._

He tried to relax as he saw Laurie break into a small smile. Conor, though, took the spoon out of Anders’ hands and gulped down his anaesthetic. 

Anders put his hands on his hips and stared at them. “Well.” 

“So, you sure you don’t need my help? These can truly cut through anything you know.” She unsheathed two of her knives out of their scabbards. 

They were dirty and still stained with dried blood from a previous fight.

Anders stared at the knives. 

She stared at the knives. 

Then they stared at each other.

“No, thank you,” and “I can clean them if you want,” they said at the same time. 

Hawke shrugged. “As you wish, but that’s your loss, really. My cuts are _very_ precise.”

Anders chuckled. “Oh, I know.” He had seen her kill someone with just one throw of her knives the last time they had fought together. 

She grinned and again their eyes lingered on each other. Anders forgot what he was doing for a second, stupidly standing in front of her.

_Maker, Anders, get a grip._

He turned back to his patients, while she distractedly twirled her knives in her hands, chatting with them as she did so. The boys were hypnotised. Perhaps letting her do this in front of impressionable young boys wasn’t the right thing to do. But they were Fereldan refugees from the Blight living in the poorest area of Kirkwall after all, they had probably seen far worse than that. 

And while she did so examining and treating them became much, much easier. 

“Can you throw one?” Angus said suddenly, excitedly pointing at one of her knives. 

“Yeah, sure!” she exclaimed and without pause started to take aim.

“No!” Anders dropped Conor’s arm and jumped to stop her before she could do it, just as she was aiming vaguely at the back of the clinic where one of his assistant was probably preparing some potion right now. 

He grabbed her hand and her skin was soft and warm against his palm. He swallowed while she looked at him, surprised. “No, Hawke, you can’t,” he managed to say before letting go of her hand.

“Ok.” She shrugged at the boys and then resumed her conversation as if nothing had happened. “So you guys are all brothers, right?” 

They nodded.

“I used to have a brother too.” 

There was a small silence as she seemed lost in thought for a moment. Anders glanced at her, surprised at the sudden wistfulness of her tone. 

“What happened to him?” asked Laurie. 

Anders’ gaze was still on her. He was curious too. She had never told him about a brother. 

She sighed before she composed herself and turned to smile at them. “Let’s just say we didn’t make it to the clinic in time.” She stopped twirling her knives for a second. “Well, in my defence there was no clinic around, really.” Shadows flickered over her face and Anders found that he had unconsciously taken a step towards her. “You guys are pretty lucky Anders is around. So better be nice with him then, right?” 

Hawke winked at him, and this time Anders blushed for real. 

The boys looked down at their feet, momentarily embarrassed and timidly nodding. 

“So, anyway, how are you boys going back home? Want me to escort you?”

Conor, who had warmed up to her quite easily after his initial fright, almost bounded out of his seat. “Yes!”

But his eldest kept him in place. “Our sister is coming to pick us up. Mom said we shouldn’t follow strangers.” 

“And she’s right,” said Anders.

“Oh cool! My sister’s coming to pick me up too.” They all looked at Hawke. “What? ‘Ts true. Hey look! She’s here! Oy, Beth!” And indeed, her sister had just walked into the clinic. “Look, that’s my sister, Bethany! And oh, there’s my boy!” Byron, her huge mabari, bounded in her direction as soon as he saw her. Hawke dropped to her knees to meet him. “Who’s a good boy? Yes, that’s you! The good boy!” She scratched his offered belly. “Yes, you’re the _best_ boy!” 

Byron barked in approval, twisting happily on the floor. 

If the brothers were fascinated by Hawke before, they were now completely enthralled. 

Anders tried to keep them in place, but he had lost them. In an instant, they leaped from their seat and crouched on the floor next to Hawke and her dog, asking questions about him and scratching every last corner of his fur. Even Laurie was beaming, seeming much better than when he had walked in, and Anders wasn’t sure it was all due to his own healing abilities. 

“Why is there milk spilled all over the clinic’s entry?” Bethany asked, looking at Anders, “I had to fend off a gang of cats to come in and I almost cut my foot on some broken glass pieces.”

Hawke opened her arm in her direction, pointing at her and looking at Anders. “See what I’m talking about!”

* * *

The boys were still buzzing with excitement minutes after Hawke, her sister and their mabari had left. 

“Whoa Anders, is she your girlfriend?”

“She’s so cool.”

“Can we come and see her again?”

Anders let out a long sigh and shook his head fondly.

Two new patients entered the clinic. 

And he thought that he too was already missing her presence. 

**Author's Note:**

> Legend says the boys visited the clinic everyday after that...
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> You can find me [@playwright-fate](https://playwright-fate.tumblr.com/) on tumblr :)


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